TABLE OF CONTENTS

Intro 2
Having the right mentality 6
How to build muscle and strength on the road 8
How to find a gym while traveling 12
Eating right on the road 16
How to bulk up 17
How to slim down 24
How I’m building muscle while traveling 27

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 INTRO
Greetings fellow road warrior!

If you’re reading this, then you probably do a fair bit of traveling, whether
for work or for pleasure, and you’re interested in staying in shape along
the way. When at home it’s easy to get into a great routine – you can
cook your own meals, you have your own gym, scheduled workouts, a
consistent time for going to bed, and all of that good stuff.

But then there’s a trip; you’re stuck in an airport, out to dinner with
friends, can’t find a good place to work out, and all of a sudden after a
week you’ve backpedaled and feel like you’re starting back at square
one.

Fortunately, I’m here to help – back when I had a desk job I did quite a
bit of traveling: small trips that were a week or less. Now that I’m living
out of a backpack and traveling for months at a time, I have enough
experience in exercising during extended travel as well.

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 I’ve finally found the secret to staying in shape while traveling; not
only maintaining your level of fitness and not falling behind, but even
INCREASING your level of fitness and getting stronger, faster, and bigger
without any of your normal comforts from home.

Here it is:

You have to want it.

Bad.

Here’s my story: back in October 2010, I spent three weeks traveling

around Peru. I didn’t have access to a gym, I lived out of a backpack,
and I had no idea where I’d be staying each night. I made excuses for
myself that I was probably going to lose muscle while traveling because I
wouldn’t have my gym (gasp!) or my blender for protein shakes (oh no!).

Because I had already made these excuses, it was easier for me to say
“eh, what’s the point of working out?” and skipping healthy meals here
and there.

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 What happened? I lost a bunch of muscle, skipped my workouts
constantly, ate poorly, spend too many nights out drinking beers, and
came back three weeks behind schedule on my exercise.

Fast forward to January 2011: Before I began my big eight month trip
around the world, I started telling myself the same thing: it’s too tough
to travel, there’s no way I can stay in shape without a gym. Without
access to a blender and weights I’m just going to waste away!

I had already set myself up for failure.

On top of that, I managed to get sick right before my trip started! I didn’t
exercise at all for the first three+ weeks of my adventure (beginning in
San Diego, then LA, Sydney, and Auckland), barely ate any food because I
had no appetite, and dropped to my lowest weight since college.

Faced with the prospect of another five months of travel, decreasing

muscle mass, and the thought of returning to the United States looking
like a skeleton, I made a decision that has changed my entire trip.

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 I decided that I was going to stop complaining and just
start doing.
From that moment on, I’ve made my personal fitness a priority. I’ve
made exercising a priority. I’ve made eating right a priority. And even
though I don’t have access to a gym, I’ve managed to pack on 10+ pounds
of healthy weight in the past month and a half, and become vastly
stronger doing only body weight workouts.

You’ll see in my workout logs (which I’ll be constantly updating as I

travel) that I’ve gone from doing sets of regular push ups to sets of
handstand push ups over the past two months.

I’m getting stronger and eating enough calories to promote muscle

growth. It’s awesome to see and has me excited to see how much
stronger I can get with each workout.

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 HAVING THE RIGHT MENTALITY
Staying in shape while traveling is tricky because you get a lot of
curveballs thrown at you – last minute flight changes, early departure
times, free continental breakfasts, late nights with friends and clients,
and so on.

You need to be dedicated. It might mean you need to spend extra

money on healthy snacks to bring with you – it might mean you need to
call it a night early instead of having a few more drinks so that you can
get your workout in tomorrow morning before your flight. It might mean
you need to drive around for 30 minutes after a client meeting to find a
local school so you can use their monkey bars for your workout.

You have to want this. I didn’t want it when I was in Peru and my body
showed. I want it very badly now. Even though I’m traveling to dozens
of countries, living out of a backpack, and have no idea where I’m staying
from one night to the next, I have missed only ONE workout in two
months (which was because I was out at sea on a boat).

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 I’ve managed to see all the sites, keep my website updated, and write a
huge portion of this book during that time too. I simply told myself that
no excuse was acceptable – I would find a time and place to workout in
every town, no matter what. Highlights include:

• Exercising in the parking lot of the Auckland airport while travelers

gave me the stink eye as they walked by. What, never seen a guy
hang upside down from a tree in a parking lot before?

• Doing my first handstand push up against the wall of a playground

in Rainbow Beach. There were no lights, it was late at night, I was
getting attacked by bugs, and I couldn’t have been happier.

• Hanging from a swinging zipline thing in Queenstown as little kids

watched with the goofiest looks on their faces. SORRY KIDS, you’ll
have to wait your turn to use the playground. This 26-year old kid
needs to play first.

• Accidentally letting out a “f*** yeah!” as I hit a personal best for

doing handstand push ups against the side of a building…in a VERY
public place in Surfers Paradise. Sorry, families with little kids!

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 HOW TO BUILD MUSCLE AND
STRENGTH ON THE ROAD
Exercising on the road is difficult if you don’t have the right mindset.
It’s easy to think that you need access to big weights, a full gym, and
protein powder in order to pack on size. Hell, that’s what I thought up
until about three months ago.

What I’ve discovered is that you absolutely can build strength and muscle
without stepping foot in a gym or picking up a single weight – you just
need to get really creative with body weight exercises.

In order to build a balanced body, the only thing you’ll need to find is
SOMETHING on which to do pull ups and chin ups. I’ll explain how I
manage to do this in every town I’m in, even though I have never been
there before. If you can find that, you only need to worry about one
other thing:

Consistently improving.

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 If you’ll remember from the Rebel Strength Guide book, the optimal
range of repetitions for building strength and muscle is in the 6-12
repetition range. 12 reps promote more muscle size, 6 reps promote
more strength, but both rep ranges increase both size and strength.

What that means is that once you can do more than 12-15 push ups in
each of your sets, it’s time to make things more difficult. Think about it
like this: if doing just more repetitions of the same thing over and over
made you bigger, than marathon runners would have the biggest legs in
the world. And yet, the strength and size belongs to sprinters, who focus
on shorter, quicker, more powerful movements.

When lifting weights, it’s easy – you just add more weight until you
can only do the prescribed number of reps. If you can bench press 200
pounds 15 times, add weight until you can only do it 10 times.

However, with body weight exercises it’s trickier. Because your weight
remains constant, you need to change the angle or way in which you
move your weight around in order to increase the difficulty.

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 For that reason, you need to change the exercises that you’re doing as
they become easier and easier.

For example, as soon as you can do four sets of 12-15 regular push ups, I’d
want to move up to four sets of legs-elevated push ups until I can do sets
of 12-15 for those. From there, I’d move to plyometric push ups.

After pike push ups become too easy, move up to jackknife push ups, and
then handstand push ups.

Here’s another little secret, the specific reps and sets and exact routines
aren’t crucial.

What IS crucial is that you’re better today than you were last time. You’ll
notice in my workouts sometimes I add in new exercises and remove
others, or add in an extra exercise at the end on some days and not on
others.

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 The reality is that each workout will be slightly different because you’ll
probably be in a new place – I don’t think I’ve ever had enough days in
the same place to do pull ups and chins ups on the same pull up bar.

As Akon says in the Lonely Island song, I Just Had Sex: “Still Counts!”

Because I’m eating right and pushing myself with each workout, I HAVE
to be getting stronger. When it comes to push ups and squats, I have
numbers for those exercises that I can compare to previous workouts to
check my progress.

As long as the number of reps is going up, I’m getting stronger. If I’m
eating right, then I’m getting bigger too.

The workout that I’m currently following is in the attached Road Warrior
Workout. Feel free to follow that or one of the Body Weight Brigade
routines.

Either one will get you results if you stick with it!

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 HOW TO FIND A GYM WHILE
TRAVELING
While traveling, you have a few options for finding a “gym,” which I
mean in the loosest sense possible. Because you’re probably following
the Body Weight Brigade routines, the ONLY piece of equipment you
need to find is something to hang from and perhaps a wall to lean against
once you’re doing handstand push ups.

I’ve been on the road now for two months, in San Diego, Los Angeles,
and about a thirty towns throughout Australia and New Zealand. In
each town, I’ve been able to get my workouts done because I can find a
“pull up bar” everywhere I go. How do I do it?

By spending my first afternoon walking around my new town and

looking for one of three things, in this order:

• A children’s playground
• A low-lying tree branch
• A low roof

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 I know that if I walk for 15 minutes in one direction or the other, I can
generally find one of these things. If I don’t feel like blindly searching
for a place to exercise, I ask the front desk at the hostel/hotel that I’m
staying in:

“Hi, I’m looking for a place to exercise, and I need some sort of pull up
bar. Is there a playground or park around here?” They can usually point
me in the right direction.

If you’re on a business trip/staying in a nice hotel, the gym might even

have a pull up bar. You’re probably driving a company rental car, right?
Why not take it for a spin until you can find a park or playground?

A few notes: you will get funny looks. There’s nothing funnier than
sweating and grunting and yelling as you’re doing weighted chin ups
hanging off some monkey bars while a 3-year old sits on a swingset two
feet away, drooling all over himself.

You’ll get odd looks from people as you hang off of roof edges and tree
branches. Who cares! You need to get over this fear of working out in
public because at the end of the day it just doesn’t matter – you’ll never

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 see these people again, and they’re more than likely impressed with what
you’re doing. I know I’d be impressed if I watched somebody working
out like crazy in a park or on a playground.

Your other option, if you’re one of those people that can’t work out
in public (you need to fix that), it’s WAY too cold out or you’re in the
Barbell Battalion or Dumbbell Division and you need access to a gym,
you have a few options:

Use the hotel gym – I can almost guarantee they won’t have a barbell
and plates, but they’ll probably have dumbbells and they might even
have a pull up bar.

If you’re in the Barbell Battalion, do the best you can to convert your
barbell exercises to dumbbell exercises – hold dumbbells overhead to do
squats, do the push press with dumbbells, deadlifts with dumbbells, and
so on. There are videos for each of those in the Dumbbell Division book if
you haven’t read it yet.

IF YOU CAN’T FIND A PULL UP BAR OR TOO COLD OUTSIDE - That’s okay,
do the rest of the workout without the pull ups. It’s still a good workout!

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 Find a local gym – if you can afford it, most gyms sell a one-time or
weekly pass for out-of-towners, though the price is usually steep.
Sometimes you can convince them that you’re moving to town…even
though you’re not…and that you’d like to try it out (using the tactics
from the “working out in commercial gym” section of the Rebel Strength
Guide).

However, expect to be walked through on a gym tour, talk to a salesman,

and get hassled to sign up for months afterward unless you give them
a fake phone number/email address. Most of the time, however, they’ll
ask for ID with a local address on it to make sure you’re not scamming
them…oops.

The other thing you can do is research your upcoming trip ahead of time
and contact the gyms in the area – let them know that you’re coming and
if they’d consider working out a deal.

It never hurts to ask.

Unless you ask for a punch in the face. Then it hurts.

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 EATING RIGHT ON THE ROAD
Not surprisingly, this is the most important part of staying in shape while
traveling – eating well, whether you’re trying to bulk up or slim down, is
10x more important that being consistent with your exercise. Eat right,
and missing a workout or two won’t screw you up too badly.

Fortunately for you, there are ways to stay on target while traveling,
but it’s going to require some pre-planning and hard work on your part.
Whether you’re looking to bulk up or slim down, I’ve got you covered.

Read on!

The Operation: Bulk Up section starts on page 17 while the Operation:

Slim Down section starts on page 24.

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 HOW TO BULK UP WHILE ON
THE ROAD
S0 you’ve been following the Rebel Strength Guide for a few weeks/
months, you’ve started to see some gains, and you’re excited about
your progress. However, you have a weeklong vacation coming up
or a business trip and you won’t have access to a gym nor your usual
supermarket, protein powder, blender, whatever. How are you going to
keep building muscle?

First and foremost, make a commitment to yourself that you’re going to

stay strong. I’m estimating that I’ll probably spend an extra 500 bucks on
my current epic trip due to increasing my food budget – In order to cover
that cost I’ve worked harder on my website to generate more sales and
I’ve cut out drinking almost completely, because it’s way too expensive
and I’ve made my personal health a priority.

...Though if you don’t think I’m gonna go out and celebrate after this book
is released you’re crazy!

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 This is one of the few times I’ll advocate the “eat anything” diet. Focus
on total calories and getting enough protein. You might put on a little
extra fat than normal, but because you’re traveling it’s not a permanent
diet change. Don’t just “eat anything” without eating enough protein
though – the only thing you’ll be building then is a gut. Doh!

Special note for backpackers: I’ve spent the past few months with frugal
backpackers – you’re only allowed to “eat anything” if that anything
includes enough protein and you’re working out. Every backpacker I see
is living off pasta and rice. All carbs, no protein. If you’re going to have
pasta, spend the extra 5 bucks to add ground beef to your sauce. If
you’re only going to eat rice, spend the six dollars on chicken that you
can eat with it.

I can’t tell you how many weird looks I’ve received from backpackers
thanks to my dietary choices (which you’ll see below) these past two
months. You know what? I’m okay with that. The people who are giving
me weird looks are either woefully skinny or horribly overweight, and
very few of them are in shape. I’m not saying what they’re doing is
wrong, it’s just that they have completely different priorities than me so I
don’t mind when they look at me funny.

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 Now, depending on the type and length of your trip, I’ll make a few
different suggestions:

Short Trips
If you’re on just a short 1, 2, or 3-day trip, you won’t have time to set up a
mini-routine to get enough calories. For that reason, you’ll need to plan
ahead:

Bring a bag of almonds – before you travel, pick up a big bag of almonds
from your local grocery store, and don’t let them leave your side. Just
keep eating, eating, eating.

If you have a fridge in your hotel room or access to a fridge – right when
you get to your destination, find a gas station or grocery store and pick
up a carton or gallon of milk (depending on how much access you’ll have
to your room and the milk throughout the day). Or, you can go with the
shotgun approach…when I have a 15-minute bus break at a gas station I’ll
buy a liter of milk and tell myself that it needs to be finished by the time I
get back on the bus.

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 Pick the high calorie items on the menu – are you on a business trip? Use
that per-diem or expense account sucka! Pasta with meat sauce, chicken
parm, steak with French fries, whatever. As long as it has a lot of protein,
aim for the high calorie meals – remember that we’re just looking to build
size here, we can deal with the extra fat later.

If you’re going to eat these unhealthy meals, try to time it so that they
come right after your workout so that the carbs and sugar are used to
refill your muscles’ glycogen stores instead of getting stored as fat.

Travel with protein powder (RISKY!) - I’ve done it, but I’m always
sweating bullets when going through security. I mean come on – it’s a
plastic bag or Tupperwear container full of white powder. Once you get
it on the plane and to your destination, it’s an easy mix with water or
juice to get enough protein each day.

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 Load up on the continental breakfast – most hotels or motels offer a free
continental breakfast these days, though usually it’s typical American
breakfast options: all carbs and no protein. If you can get an omlet –
great. If not, you might need to import your own protein by eating a few
handfuls of almonds. Your other option is to eat a lot of cereal - a small
bowl of cereal with a LOT of whole milk. Drink the milk after the cereal is
gone, and then fill it up again.

Buy protein bars – again not optimal, but it’ll work if there are no other
options. I used to travel with Big 100 Colossal Protein bars – 30+ grams of
protein, 400+ calories, but a lot of sugar and carbs as well. Good to have
with you if you’re going to be in an office all day and won’t have access to
food. Just remember that the wrappers for these things are INCREDIBLY
loud when opening them (not that I’ve been in an important meeting
when trying to eat one, or anything like that...).

Hit up Subway Restaurants – my guilty pleasure sub of choice is their

meatball sub toasted on wheat bread. I’ll get one of these after working
out – tons of calories and lots of protein. Because it’s consumed
immediately after a workout, the bad carbs are usually converted to
glycogen for my muscles instead of being stored as fat.

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 LONG Trips
Everything above is still applicable, but you have a few additional options
available to you – I’m going to assume that you have access to a fridge
for your extended trip.

GOMAD still works – just because you’re traveling doesn’t mean you
can’t drink milk. In fact, I’ve found that doing GOMAD while traveling
is the easiest way to make sure I get enough calories and milk. Each
morning, head to your local grocery store/convenience store, pick up a
gallon, and drink it all day until it’s gone. Even if you can’t do a whole
gallon, a half gallon or liter is better than nothing.

Shots of olive oil – gross, I know…but you get used to it. I’ve gone
through a few bottles of olive oil while busing around these countries.
Before each meal I take a few swigs (each swig doesn’t taste bad, it’s
just the final aftertaste that is rough) of olive oil and I’ve added 300+
calories to my meal. I try to do this one in private, as you tend to get
some REALLY bizarre looks from people when you drink straight from the
bottle. It’s not the looks that bother me, but the 10-minute explanation
that’s required after.

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 Peanut butter, apples, and bread – peanut butter is cheap, loaded with
calories, fat, and protein. Almond butter is better for you, but also more
expensive and very tough to find while traveling (unless you’re in the
States, and even then it’s still tough to find). Slather it on some bread for
a PB sandwich or dunk apple slices in it for a quick snack.

Make a funky salad – you need to get your veggies into your diet – here’s
my latest fun creation:

-Half a bag of baby spinach

-Two apples sliced up into very small square pieces
-Two handfuls of almonds

Mix all of these things up on a plate, and then drizzle the HELL out of the
salad with olive oil – veggies, fruit, nuts, and oil. Good for you, plenty of
fiber, and tons of calories, fats, carbs, and protein. Wash it down with a
HUGE glass of whole milk and you have a whole meal.

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 HOW TO SLIM DOWN ON THE
ROAD
Slimming down on the road is a little more difficult, as you don’t have as
much leeway like the “eat whatever you want as long as there is protein
in it” skinny guys/girls. Here’s how you stay committed.

Plan ahead – if you know where you’re traveling, plan ahead by doing
your research and selecting restaurants that have healthier options. If
you don’t get to pick the restaurant, at least scope out the menu before
so you know what you’re getting into.

Pack your own snacks – bring a bag of almonds with you to the airport
– they’re high in calories so don’t eat a million of them, but a handful of
almonds is often enough to curb a hunger strike that can result in a trip
to Dunkin Donuts or the Chili’s in the airport if not taken care of.

Practice intermittent fasting – if you don’t have control over all of your
food options, this is a good time to try out intermittent fasting. When
your body doesn’t have new food to pull from, it’ll start pulling from the

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 fat stores in your body for energy. Eat dinner one night, and then skip
breakfast and lunch the next day. Eat a big dinner that following night.
There’s more on this in the Operation Slim Down book.

Avoid the continental breakfasts – yes, I know it’s tough to turn down
free breakfast from your hotel. But when the options are orange juice,
a croissant, muffin, and bagels, it’s ALL terrible carbs and zero protein.
Feel free to eat the fresh fruit, maybe have some of the whole milk with a
bowl of cheerios, and bring your almonds with you to the table, but avoid
the carb-heavy entrees.

Paleo is easier than you think – when you’re out at a restaurant, ask for
grilled chicken instead of fried, and ask for vegetables instead of French
fries. There’s usually at least ONE thing on the menu that is healthy for
you. And ask for salad dressing on the side!

Don’t eat the whole thing – when out to dinner while traveling, you’re
probably given at least 1.5-2 servings on your plate. Make a commitment
before you start eating that you’ll only eat half – the other half is coming
home with you for breakfast or lunch the following day.

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 Exercise more – calories in vs. calories out. If you’re going to eat crappy
foods, then you’re going to need to exercise more in order to balance
things out. Extra long walks, hill sprints outside your hotel, jumping
rope in the lobby, push ups in the airport (don’t laugh, I’ve done it), even
squats while holding your luggage over your head. BURN MORE!

If you don’t have a lot of time – follow the NF 20-minute hotel room
workout. You will never again use the “I don’t have time” excuse.

Avoid liquid calories like the plague – if you’re going to eat bad food
(which is inevitable when you’re on a trip with everybody who is eating
bad foods), don’t compound the problem by drinking tons of soda/beer/
whatever. Stick with water, and save yourself a few hundred calories.
Over the course of a few weeks, that could save you a few pounds of fat
gain.

Expect funny looks – you will get funny looks from coworkers who
wonder why you’re not eating the donuts and muffins like everybody
else. You’ll get made fun of at the table when asking for veggies or not
finishing your whole meal. Let them have their fun, you’re on a mission.

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 HOW I’M BUILDING MUSCLE ON
THE ROAD
I’ve been training in gyms for the past decade, so making the switch to “I
want to build muscle and strength with just my body weight” was a new
concept to me. However, I figured that if gymnasts can be in absolutely
incredible shape with primarily just using their body, I could do the same.

Here’s a link to my workout page that I’ll be updating constantly

throughout the trip. I’ll try to be as specific as possible with my notes.

So, I began loosely following the routines laid out in the Road Warrior
Workout every other day. If you’ll notice in the first few workouts my
push up numbers skyrocket.

This isn’t typical – I’d say the first few workouts were because I was sick
and weak…after a few workouts I started to get healthier and my push
up numbers increased to the amount that was more indicative of my level
of fitness.

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 However, it wasn’t until I made it a priority to find a pull up bar that I
really started focusing on my diet (which is when the growth started).
Unfortunately, I don’t have body fat calipers, tape measures, or
consistent access to a scale – the only three times I’ve been weighed on
my trip has been before my skydive, before I bungee-jumped, and for my
scuba certification physical.

I know that two weeks ago I could only do two handstand push ups, and
now I can do six handstand push ups. I know I am getting stronger, and
I know I am overloading my system with calories, so I’m confident that I
am also building muscle.

I’ve put on 12+ pounds since I started my trip, and I’d imagine at least
five of those pounds are muscle. Some might look at that ratio and say
“that’s too much fat and not enough muscle.”

As a skinny guy I’m really only concerned with the muscle gain – I took it
as a personal challenge to myself to see if I could actually do it - the fat
gain is ineveitable. However, I know that I can cut the fat when I need to
by switching to the Paleo Diet and keep the muscle I’ve built.

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 My current plan is to bulk up through the remainder of April while in
Australia, and then either do another month of bulking up in May or
switch to Paleo and slim down to see where I’m at.

So how am I bulking up? By being really really boring with my diet.

When I get to a new location, I buy these things:

-Loaf of bread
-Box of Cheerios
-Jar of peanut butter
-Bottle of olive oil (size depends on how long I have to drink it)
-3-4 apples
-3L of milk (they don’t have gallons down here in Australia)
-Bag of almonds (if my old bag has run out)
-Bag of baby spinach

I then spend my days drinking all of the milk, eating almonds, muching
on 2-4 peanut butter sandwiches a day, snacking on an apple and
spinach salad here and there, and taking swigs of olive oil before each
meal. I try to find a Subway RIGHT after my workouts. If I can’t find one,
I race back to my hostel to chug a lot of milk while eating pb sandwiches.

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 Here’s a picture of one my “meals”:

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 Obviously this certainly isn’t the healthiest diet on the planet, but I’m
okay with that – I’m hiking every day, but I’m managing to put on good
weight…I can still see my abs and now I can do handstand push ups!

This isn’t a permanent diet for me, and it’s getting me the results I’m
after – more muscle mass. Once I’m back in the states and have easier
access to healthier foods, I can transition back to my old diet (mostly
Paleo), drop the extra few pounds of fat, and keep the muscle.

Three months ago, I honestly didn’t think it’d be possible to gain weight
and muscle without a gym, protein powder, or a blender. Two months
into my trip, I’m getting significant results and I couldn’t be more excited.

Bring on the next workout!

If you have more questions about eating/working out while traveling, or

you have your own tips on how to stay healthy/lose weight/bulk up while
traveling, shoot me an email at steve@nerdfitness.com and I’ll add it to
future revisions of this workout!

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